TRADITIONAL skills are to be passed down from one generation to the next after a Pickering ironmonger finally found an apprentice.

John Flintoft, who owns Flintoft Ironmongers in Hungate, has been looking for someone to be his apprentice for four years. After years of struggling to find the right candidate, he has now offered the position to James Fenwick.

Mr Flintoft said: "I had someone in mind and eventually I got them. We've now got a young man carrying on very old skills."

Among the skills that are part of the trade are those of "architectural ironmongery" - the fashioning of sometimes intricate items such as handles, locks, keys and hinges.

One of Mr Fenwick's first projects was creating, by hand, two keys for a traditional church lock. This project was made more complex by the fact that the church lock was old and worn, so the keys had to be bespoke.

"He made the two keys completely from scratch," said Mr Flintoft. "We have to do things the old-fashioned way. This is all benchwork - cutting by hand, working by hand."

In an area like Ryedale, such traditional skills are still in demand. The ironmongers make keys, locks and other pieces for a range of historic buildings from churches to old houses. Flintoft's have made keys for a building at Helmsley Castle and the Archbishop's palace in York.

Mr Fenwick said: "I've always been interested in engineering, and I'd had a few jobs before this one. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's been three months now - it's challenging but I've learned a lot.

"It's good to be learning a skill that is dying out."

Mr Flintoft said the route into the trade used to be a seven-year apprenticeship, but these have largely disappeared.

Mr Fenwick's background is in various other trades, including an apprenticeship at an engineering works.

Mr Flintoft said of his new apprentice: "He's taken to it like a duck to water."